474 



I have also known men, who, disdaining all that 

 is excellent in the character, the literature, and 

 the arts of the Spaniards, have lost their national 

 individuality, without having acquired from 

 their connexions with foreigners any just ideas 

 of the real bases of happiness and social 

 order. 



Since the reign of Charles V, the corporation 

 spirit and municipal habits have passed from 

 the mother country to the colonies, men take a 

 pleasure at Cumana, and in other commercial 

 towns of Terra Firma, in exaggerating the pre- 

 tensions to nobility of the most illustrious fami- 

 lies of Caraccas, known by the name of los 

 Mantuanos. I am ignorant in what manner 

 these pretensions were formerly manifested ; but 

 it appeared to me, that the progress of know- 

 ledge, and the change effected in manners, have 

 gradually and pretty generally destroyed what- 

 ever is offensive in those distinctions among the 

 Whites. In all the colonies there exist two 

 kinds of nobility. One is composed of the 

 Creoles, whose ancestors have very recently 

 filled great stations in America. Their prero- 

 gatives are partly founded on the distinction 

 they enjoy in the mother country ; and they 

 imagine they can retain them beyond the sea, 

 whatever may be the date of their settlement 

 in the colonies. The other nobility has more of 

 an American cast. It is composed of the 



